Think of your students as fish, swimming around in the waters of the school. An engaging lesson gives you the bait with which to catch your fish. And once they are hooked on your bait, then misbehaving will hopefully be the last thing on their minds!

Engaging your students is important for a number of reasons. An exciting lesson can be used:

To understand science, it is important that we appreciate the contexts in which discoveries are made or suppressed. We can see from the account on the previous page that human understanding of the universe has changed significantly over time. The social and political climate in which scientists work has always had a profound influence on what can and cannot be said, done, published or even postulated as worthy of further investigation. (You could undertake a similar study of the debates on hu

We now go on to look at the history and traditions of scientific discovery. As an early years practitioner, you will find this survey useful in helping you to challenge the prevailing perception of science as ‘absolute truth’.

What we call science was once regarded as ‘magic’, ‘alchemy’ or ‘conjuring’. Such knowledge was viewed as ‘black magic’ and feared as a satanic art (Woolley, 2002). In part this may have been because, in the Middle Ages, scientific ideas were e

The purposes of scientific enquiry are to describe, explain, predict and control (Reaves, 1992). Through scientific training, natural curiosity is developed into objective, empirical (experience-based) study involving observations and controlled experiments which constitute the methods of scientific enquiry that lead to scientific knowledge.

Author(s): The Open University

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This course is about the ways in which we come to know and make sense of the world, in particular how we do this using the media of language, mathematics and science.

There are many possible theoretical positions which can be taken towards early years curricula. Some people, for example, think of children as ‘empty vessels’ which can be ‘filled’ with knowledge that is transmitted to them by adults. This view has been associated with a behaviourist approach to teaching and

The impact of the expanding contribution of teaching assistants on the teacher’s role is generally recognised as being positive. It is worth acknowledging, however, that many teachers have had to make adjustments to their practice in order to work with teaching assistants as team colleagues. Many are able to make this adjustment. We do sometimes, however, hear of teachers who find it hard to work well with another adult in a classroom context. Despite the presence of assistants in primary s

In Activity 1 you looked at the various support roles of Jean, a pupil support assistant. Let us now consider the essential nature of the work that assistants do and the way they contribute to the totality of work in a classroom.

Are teaching assistants ‘simply’ assisting teachers in doing their work? If this is so, it seems that teachers and assistants are working together to carry out the duties that previously teachers working alone would have covered. On this analysis, teaching

Teaching assistants and other related learning support staff are also to be found in the schools for children of British armed forces posted oversees, in the schools of other European countries and in countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia. A survey conducted by the National Union of Teachers (NUT, 1998) highlighted some interesting support roles found in European schools, and it is worthwhile to consider these in the light of the developing role of teaching assistants in the UK. As

Between the mid 1990s and 2012, in all four UK countries there was a growth in the number of teaching assistants working alongside teachers in primary classrooms. As we have indicated, the seeds of this development were sown in the 1980s, when support staff were employed to support the inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Teaching assistants were recruited to provide individualised help for children. In some areas of the UK, nursery nurses have long w

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Everyday English for Construction and Engineering 1 This free course, Everyday English for Construction and Engineering 1, will develop and improve your essential speaking and listening, reading and writing skills for work, study and everyday life. First published on Thu, 30 May 2019 as Author(s): Creator not set

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Intermediate German: The world of work This free course, Intermediate German: The world of work, concentrates on developing cultural knowledge and practical language skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing and interacting in a variety of situations. The course will be of interest to anyone who wants to improve their language skills in order to communicate more easily and effectively in German. It focuses on talking about and reflecting on work and the development of professional lives in the future.Author(s): Creator not set

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Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see http://www.open.ac.uk/conditions terms and conditions), this content is made available under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2